Geeze and Ops
by RainbowsLive
Summary: Two stormtroopers must work on finding a brutal murderer in the wake of the destruction of the first Death Star.


GY-128 was not on the Death Star when the rebels blew it up. He didn't have any friends stationed there, either. He supposed he should have felt it more, the way a good citizen of the Empire would, but truth be told he mostly felt relief. GY-0128, or "Geeze" to his friends, was actually something of a coward. He had signed on with the Empire right when it was first created, when it looked like there was going to finally be peace. And, truth be told, he mostly just did it for the discounts on caf that his favorite cafe offered to soldiers. He drained his caf, paid his credits, and walked out into the busy streets of Coruscant. If he was on the upper levels, his cobalt-blue stormtrooper armor would have caught the light, shone a bit, and cut quite the striking figure. As it was, it was a dull matte, designating him as an officer of the Emperor's laws, if not a particularly majestic looking one.

He stepped into his small police ship with his partner, OS-0322. "Ops" wasn't wearing his helmet. He was holding it in his hands, shaking his head silently as he watched a datafeed of the Death Star's explosion.

"322,951." Ops said. He sounded broken. "Three-two-two...nine-five-one. That's how many good men and women died. And all it took was poor engineering and one lucky shot from some worthless rebel scum." Ops' eyes were wet. He wasn't crying, but impotent rage had contorted his face and had almost managed to make him lose his control. It would be a very, _very_ bad day for any criminals he got hold of.

Geeze watched Ops. He had never seen his big, tough, cool partner display any particularly strong emotion before, and they had worked some _gruesome_ cases before. Even so, Geeze just couldn't force himself to feel that much for the destruction of the Death Star. Truth be told, since the destruction of Alderaan, he had been having nightmares about what would happen if the rebels managed to somehow capture the battle station. Worried about what would happen to his planet if they did. After all, Coruscant was the center of the empire. And those rebels seemed to hate peace and security, so he saw no reason that they wouldn't kill his world, had they the chance. He knew it was unlikely that the rebels would have ever captured the station, but it was always a fear. And, truth be told, he would rather _another_ 322,951 strangers die on some poorly-constructed battle station than his friends, family, and planet. Still, he couldn't let Ops know that, not the least because he was fairly certain that Ops could kill him without thinking too hard about it. So he forced himself to stare at the datafeed, the light pouring over his face which he tried to force into a less impassive shape.

Without a warning, the Datafeed shut off and a hologram of their chief came flickering to life on their dash. "GY-0128, OS-0322, there's been a murder." Ordinarily, Geeze wouldn't have worried all that much. The murderers of the underworld were rarely smart enough to know how to cover their tracks, and the cases were usually pretty open-and-shut. One guy has an argument over the price of his deathsticks, one guy gets in a fight with the lady, one guy's just a wacko. Easy money. But this time, the chief's voice and body language screamed "urgent" even as she was calm. Truth be told, she might have just been tense after the Death Star, but her strained, false calm seemed to contain more than that. "On level 5127."

Now he understood. Level 5127 was the realm of the super-rich. The ones who could buy and sell people like him and Ops without noticing the smallest dinge in their wealth. The ones who could afford sunlight and breathable air. The ones who had bodyguards in the numbers and skill to rival a platoon of Stormtroopers and put up a good fight. The ones who were simply too rich to _be_ murdered. Ops put on his helmet, flicked on the sirens, and sped straight up through the levels. Ops always loved pushing their ship to the limit, and was always irritated whenever Geeze would actually take the time to follow the laws in it. Geeze, meanwhile, was more cautious. Whenever Ops drove, he'd grip the edges of seat until his knuckles were white.

"Geeze!"

"What?"

"You trying to be a rebel now?"  
"W-what?!"

"Well, you seem to be trying to break my damn seat with that grip of yours! Loosen up!"

Ops was getting back to his usual self. This was a pretty typical joke for him. Finally, after harrowing minutes of flight, weaving through traffic at almost certainly fatal speeds and Ops swearing at everyone who didn't simply leap out of their way to let them pass, they reached the proper level and building. They pulled up at the balcony of the victim's room. Crime scene photographers and a detective were already there.

Geeze knew this particular detective. OI-0101. "Patterns." She was a great friend of his. Actually, he had forgone getting a godfather for his daughter and son. Instead, he had asked her to be their godmother, and she had agreed. She seemed, to most, to be coldly logical, and almost callous. But that was just her job. If you really got to know her and let her open up, Patterns really was a very warm and caring person.

"Geeze. Ops. The victim was low-ranking Imperial Officer, Yerith Smit. The body is covered in scorch marks that don't match blaster fire, and he has a puncture wound going straight through his gut. Another through his chest, piercing the heart. These wounds appear to have been caused by a very primitive weapon, and analysis shows that they were inflicted AFTER whatever scorched him. There is a scorch mark on the wall, believed to be from Yerith's personal blaster, which was found 10 feet from the body."

Geeze stared at the corpse. He was sure that the officer would have been very impressive and intimidating, were he alive and in uniform. However, the officer was neither alive nor awake, and truth be told, in the split-open, bloodstained, imperial-grey bathrobe that the man was wearing you could see the pudge that his wealth had brought him. He didn't look like a leader of warriors. He looked like a sad old man.

Ops threw out a word and made it a question. "Rebels?" Before, the thought of the rebellion being so bold as to attack an officer on the Empire's capital planet would have been ridiculous. Now that they had hit the battlestation, anything was possible.

Patterns looked at him severely. "There is, as of yet, no definite suspect. There's no reason to go after the rebels for this without proof. The citizenship is already nervous about them, and we do not need their officers fanning the flames."

Geeze hoped that it wasn't the rebels. Criminals could either be reasoned with or taken down. The rebellion, meanwhile, wanted nothing but chaos and destruction. Or at least, that's how it seemed to him.


End file.
